Recognizing the Public Health Impact of Genocide

Author Affiliations: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Portland, Ore (Mr Willis), and Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Mass (Dr Levy).

Recently, the scope of public health has expanded to include issues
of war, humanitarian crisis, and violence.1- 5
It is time to explicitly recognize genocide as another issue within the purview
of public health. While such an acknowledgment may seem unnecessary, it is
vital so that appropriate public health policies and interventions to prevent
genocide or mitigate its public health ramifications can be developed and
implemented.